Talk:Writing

Techical writing

A few scientific journals attempt to advise on writing; one is the Style Notes for The Journal of Neuroendocrinology here. As I wrote them I don't comment further. They begin as follows:

"The purpose of writing is to convey information and ideas from one mind to another. Good writing achieves this efficiently, whether the subject is sex or science, and even if, as is often the case in neuroendocrinology, the subject is both.

Clarity of thought distinguishes the best of scientists, and clarity of expression is particularly important in science, where fast and efficient communication underpins collective progress. Yet it is still an apparently widespread misconception that, for a scientific paper to be good, it must be dull, or obscure, or both. No referee or editor has ever advised me that a paper was unsuitable because it was too clear, too fluent, or too elegantly written. On the other hand, it is a common complaint that, while a paper might contain interesting data, it is impossible to be sure because the introduction fails to make the purpose of the study clear, because the presentation of data is so confusing, because the discussion is so tortuous, or because the account of the methodology is so incomplete."Gareth Leng 07:30, 31 July 2008 (CDT)